Foundational Course: Child's Growth and Development

By Prof. Sharmila Yadav | Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan

Learners enrolled: 2907 | Exam registration: 1218

ABOUT THE COURSE:

The Child's Growth and Development Course in the NPTEL Online Certification (NOC) program gives insight into the growth and development from conception to adolescence. It provides an opportunity for both students and professionals with a robust learning experience, and they can relate the theoretical aspects to their daily lives. It covers physical, language, emotional, psychosocial, cognitive, and personality development from infancy to adolescence. It also tells the crucial role of parents, family, home, teachers, and school in the child’s overall development. A deep understanding of a child's growth and development is considered essential for becoming a professional teacher/ teacher educator. As it allows teachers/ teacher educators to tailor their teaching methods/strategies to the specific needs and capabilities of children at different ages and developmental stages, making their instruction more appropriate & effective. The course also gives an insight into Tagore’s perspective on the child’s self-development.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: UG/ PG/ Ph.D. Students from Humanities and Social Sciences

PREREQUISITES: Any UG Course

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
https://www.tissx.tiss.edu/courses/course-v1:TISSx-COOL+CGU01+2020_CGU_EN_01/about

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Core
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences Psychology
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	19 Jan 2026
End Date :	10 Apr 2026
Enrollment Ends :	02 Feb 2026
Exam Registration Ends :	20 Feb 2026
Exam Date :	19 Apr 2026 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: CONCEPT AND STAGES OF GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT

Concept of Growth and Development: Meaning, characteristics and nature of Growth and Development. Distinction between growth and development. Principles of Development. Educational implications of growth and development.
Stages of Development: Characteristics of Infancy, early childhood, late childhood, puberty and adolescence. Nature of the problems of adolescents. Importance for teachers and educators

Week 2: PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Physical Development: Development of height, weight, organs, structure and proportion of the body from infancy to adolescence. Factors affecting physical development (heredity, nutrition, health, environment, etc.)

Week 3: MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

Motor Development: Principles and sequence of motor development. Development of muscle dexterity and co-ordination, gross and fine motor skills, handedness and leg skills.

Week 4: LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Language Development: Behaviorist perspective- B.F. Skinner’s Theory of Language Acquisition. Nativist perspective- Noam Chomsky’s Theory of Language Acquisition. Milestones in the development of language & stages of language development. Factors affecting language development. Educational Implications of the theories.

Week 5: LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

Language areas in the brain. Role of the teachers in developing language and communication skills in children, with special emphasis on the children with Visual impairment, hearing impairment and speech difficulty. Language and thinking. Concept of Bilingualism, Multilingualism, NEP-2020 & Language.

Week 6: SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Social Development: Pattern of social development during childhood, puberty and adolescence. Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development and its educational implications. Role of home, school and community in social development and adjustment

Week 7: EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Emotional Development: Patterns of emotional development from Infancy to adolescence, Characteristics and conditions of emotional development, Factors affecting emotional development, Socio-cultural influences in emotional development. Role of family, school and community in emotional Development.

Week 8: MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Moral Development: Piaget’s theory of Moral development, Kohlberg’s theory of Moral Development and their Educational implications. Role of discipline, values, and role models in moral development, Influence of family, educational Institutions, culture, and environment in moral development

Week 9: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Cognitive Development: Meaning and importance of cognitive development, Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, Information processing approach & its educational implications, Role of the teachers and school in enhancing the cognitive development of the children.

Week 10: LEV VYGOTSKY’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Cognitive Development: Lev Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory of Cognitive Development- it’s educational significance. Role of family, school and community in the cognitive development of the child.

Week 11: INTELLIGENCE & CREATIVITY

Meaning and nature of Intelligence & Creativity, Theories of Intelligence& Creativity, Psychological tests to measure Intelligence & Creativity. Nurturing creativity among children, role of teacher in promoting creativity among the children.

Week 12: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Development of Personality: Meaning of personality. Social, cultural and economical influences in the development of personality. Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytical theory of personality development and it’s educational implications. Assessment of Personality. Role of home, school and community in the all-round development of the personality of the child.

Books and references

1.Hurlock, E.B. (2011). Child Development, 6th Edition, New Dehi: Tata Mc Graw - Hill Education Private Limited.
2.Hurlock, E.B. (2018). Developmental Psychology A Life Span Approach, 5th Edition, Chennai: Tata Mc Graw - Hill Education Private Limited.
3.Woolfolk, A., Misra, G. (2012). Fundamentals of educational psychology. New. Delhi, India: Pearson Publication.
4.Ciccarelli, S.K. & White, N.J. (2022). Psychology, Pearson Publication.

Instructor bio

Prof. Sharmila Yadav

Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan

Dr. Sharmila Yadav currently serves as an Assistant Professor at Visva-Bharati (A Central University and an Institution of National Importance) in West Bengal. She has more than 14 years of experience of teaching PG students (B.Ed., M.Ed. & M.A in Education). Her Area of interest includes Educational Psychology, Special Education, and Inclusive Education. Before her current job, she held the position of an Assistant Professor at the Regional Institute of Education, Ajmer (NCERT). She published several research papers in prestigious journals and book chapters. She also guides Ph.D. scholars. She supervised more than 70 M.Ed. and MA (Education) dissertations and most of them mainly focused on educational psychology, students with disabilities, and inclusive education. She has developed the curriculum for Child’s Growth and Development, Psychological Perspectives in Education in M.Ed., M.A. (Education), and B.Ed. program for Visva-Bharati. Additionally, she has been associated with CBSE developed Modules on the Psychological basis of Active learning. She has been the Coordinator of the B.Ed. program for the academic session 2021-22, 2022-23, and for the academic session 2023-24 at the Department of Education, Vinaya Bhavana, Visva-Bharati.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: April 19, 2026 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kharagpur .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team